A Study of Chemistry Laboratory Facilities in Senior Secondary Schools

Chemistry is an experimental science which gives opportunity to the learners to familiarize with the scientific methods and get them doing important scientific activities like observing, measuring, analyzing and describing. It also provides an opportunity to the teacher to teach chemistry as a way of investigation. Laboratory work is an essential component of chemistry curriculum. The development of powers of observation, measurement, prediction, interpretation and decision making are dependent on laboratory work experience of students. But unfortunately the present curriculum transaction approach in chemistry, like all other sciences, relies mostly on abstract thinking, writing long formulae and complex structures and handling complicated equipments. This method of teaching chemistry has discouraged both teachers as well as pupils. The main reason for this process is that the laboratories in most of the schools today are not adequate to get all science students actively engaged in experiments. Rather, schools heavily resort to either no experiments or if there is any urgency then as minimum as they can. Also, experiments which form a part of the syllabus are not relevant or interesting and are not related to the issues connected with the real life situations. Besides this, there are various constrains such as large teacher-pupil ratio in the class / laboratory, lack of physical facilities for performing experiments as required by the rigid and time-bound heavy syllabus. This paper discusses the outcomes of a study which attempted to examine the chemistry laboratories facilities at senior secondary schools of Delhi – NCR.